GoKawiilFans of the cyberpunk genre have much to look forward to, with Blade Runner 2099 and Apple TV's Neuromancer adaptation on the way. But if you're hungry for a great "high tech, low life" film right now, you might consider looking to the not-so-distant past. Strange Days flew under my radar for years, but now it's one of my favorite science-fiction movies.
Though it was released back in 1995, Strange Days looks and feels like it could've come out yesterday. It's one of those rare old movies that imagined the technology of virtual reality without turning it into a gimmick.
Strange Days takes place in 1999 Los Angeles during the last 48 hours of the millennium. Lenny Nero, played by Ralph Fiennes, is a former cop who now peddles an illegal virtual reality experience called Playback.
Nero's friend and bodyguard, Mace (Angela Bassett), tries to keep him rooted in reality and away from trouble. Together, they work to track down a brutal rapist and murderer -- a man who uses VR Playback discs to record his crimes from his own point of view.
The movie wasted no time dropping me into its jarring setting: The opening scene is an armed robbery filmed in first-person perspective, with the robber running from cops and jumping from one rooftop to another. A couple of scenes later, I saw tanks on the streets of LA and heard radio callers declaring that the world would end at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000.
Strange Days reminds me of the best Black Mirror episodes -- both deeply disturbing and uncomfortably close to home. Director Kathryn Bigelow was influenced by the 1992 LA riots and incorporated those elements of racial tension and police violence into her work. The result is a movie that's sometimes difficult to watch but impossible to look away from.
At the same time, Strange Days is grounded by emotion. Nero (Fiennes) spends a good portion of the movie reliving memories of his failed relationship with the singer Faith (played by actress-turned-rocker Juliette Lewis). Lying in bed while he plays back footage of happier days, he can trick himself into believing he's roller skating with Faith again -- until the disc stops spinning and he opens his eyes, back in the lonely present day.
"This is not 'like TV only better,'" says Nero, as he introduces the VR Playback tech to one of his clients. "This is life."
But Bassett's character, Mace, believes otherwise, at one point confronting Nero over his attachment to his "used emotions."
"This is your life!" says Mace. "Right here! Right now! It's real time, you hear me? Real time, time to get real, not Playback!"
... continue reading